How many pets do we have?

These days, 68 percent of U.S. households have pets, compared to 1988 when just 56 percent of households had pets, according to the 2013-2014 APPA (American Pet Products Association) National Pet Owners Survey.

Over 56.5 million households have dogs, while more than 45 million have cats. The third most popular pets – freshwater fish – swim in at 14.3 million. Other pets account for less than 7 million each.

Now those are just the household numbers, and we know many households have multiple pets. The dog figures swell to over 83 million in that case, and cats rise to over 95 million, surpassing the dog figure considerably. It’s what I would have predicted – that multiple cats in a home are more common than multiple dogs.

In the U.S., we spent a whopping $55.72 billion on our pets in 2013, according to figures gathered by the APPA from various market research sources, and the figure is predicted to surpass that in 2014.

Here’s a little interesting aside it reported: 32 percent of people with dogs take their pets with them in the car when they’re going on a trip for two or more nights. I’m one of those. Our dog, Cooper travels almost everywhere with my husband and me. Does your dog travel with you?